THE WILLIAMSBURG CHARTER, 1988

A celebration and reaffirmation of the Religious Liberty clauses, drafted by
representatives of America's leading faiths on the occasion of the 200th
anniversary of the call for the Bill of Rights.

I. A Time for Reaffirmation

The Inalienable Right

The Ever Present Danger

The Most Nearly Perfect Solution

II. A Time For Reappraisal

The Issue Is Not Only What We Debate, But How

The Issue Is Not Sectarian, But National

The Issue Is Larger Than The Disputants

The Issue Is Understandably Threatening

III. A Time for Reconstitution

The Criteria Must Be Multiple

The Consensus Must Be Dynamic

The Compact Must Be Mutual

Renewal of First Principles

PREFACEThe Williamsburg Charter was written and published expressly to
address the dilemmas, challenges, and opportunities posed by religious liberty
in American public life today. Beginning in the fall of 1986, the charter was
drafted by representatives of America's leading faiths--Protestant, Catholic,
Jewish, and secularist, in particular. It was revised over the course of two
years in close consultation with political leaders, scholars from many
disciplines, and leaders from a wide array of faith communities. Named after
Williamsburg in honor of the city's role as the cradle of religious liberty in
America, it was presented to the nation in Williamsburg on June 25, 1988, when
the first 100 national signers signed it publicly on the occasion of the 200th
anniversary of Virginia's call for the Bill of Rights.

The stated purpose of the charter is fourfold: to celebrate the uniqueness of
the First Amendment religious liberty clauses; to reaffirm religious liberty--or
freedom of conscience--for citizens of all faiths and none; to set out the place
of religious liberty within American public life; and to define the guiding
principles by which people with deep differences can contend robustly but
civilly in the public arena.

There are three main sections in the charter: first, a call for a
reaffirmation of the first principles that underlie the religious liberty in
American experience; second, a call for a reappraisal of the course and conduct
of recent public controversies; and third, a call for "reconstitution" of the
American people, in the sense of this generation reappropriating the Framers'
vision and ideals in our time.

Numerous individual points could be highlighted in a document that has much
to say on current issues in law and society--the place accorded to naturalistic
faiths, the delineation of the relationship of the two religious liberty
clauses, the mention of the menace of the modern state, the insistence on the
danger of "semi-establishments," and so on. But the two principal themes of the
charter center on the importance of religious liberty as America's "first
liberty," and on the religious liberty clauses as the "golden rule" for civic
life. These themes--the inalienable right and the universal duty to respect that
right--are developed in various ways, ranging from exposition of first
principles to contemporary guidelines, but the overall effect is a powerful
restatement of a critical aspect of America's public philosophy.

THE WILLIAMSBURG CHARTER

Keenly aware of the high national purpose of commemorating the bicentennial
of the United States Constitution, we who sign this Charter seek to celebrate
the Constitution's greatness, and to call for a bold reaffirmation and
reappraisal of its vision and guiding principles. In particular, we call for a
fresh consideration of religious liberty in our time, and of the place of the
First Amendment Religious Liberty clauses in our national life.

We gratefully acknowledge that the Constitution has been hailed as America's
"chief export" and "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by
the brain and purpose of man." Today, two hundred years after its signing, the
Constitution is not only the world's oldest, still-effective written
constitution, but the admired pattern of ordered liberty for countless people in
many lands.

In spite of its enduring and universal qualities, however, some provisions of
the Constitution are now the subject of widespread controversy in the United
States. One area of intense controversy concerns the First Amendment Religious
Liberty clauses, whose mutually reinforcing provisions act as a double guarantee
of religious liberty, one part barring the making of any law "respecting an
establishment of religion" and the other barring any law "prohibiting the free
exercise thereof."

The First Amendment Religious Liberty provisions epitomize the Constitution's
visionary realism. They were, as James Madison said, the "true remedy" to the
predicament of religious conflict they originally addressed, and they well
express the responsibilities and limits of the state with respect to liberty and
justice.

Our commemoration of the Constitution's bicentennial must therefore go beyond
celebration to rededication. Unless this is done, an irreplaceable part of
national life will be endangered, and a remarkable opportunity for the expansion
of liberty will be lost.

For we judge that the present controversies over religion in public life pose
both a danger and an opportunity. There is evident danger in the fact that
certain forms of politically reassertive religion in parts of the world are, in
principle, enemies of democratic freedom and a source of deep social antagonism.
There is also evident opportunity in the growing philosophical and cultural
awareness that all people live by commitments and ideals, that value-neutrality
is impossible in the ordering of society, and that we are on the edge of a
promising moment for a fresh assessment of pluralism and liberty. It is with an
eye to the promise and the peril that we publish this Charter and pledge
ourselves to its principles.

We readily acknowledge our continuing differences. Signing this Charter
implies no pretense that we believe the same things or that our differences over
policy proposals, legal interpretations and philosophical groundings do not
ultimately matter. The truth is not even that what unites us is deeper than what
divides us, for differences over belief are the deepest and least easily
negotiated of all.

The Charter sets forth a renewed national compact, in the sense of a solemn
mutual agreement between parties, on how we view the place of religion in
American life and how we should contend with each other's deepest differences in
the public sphere. It is a call to a vision of public life that will allow
conflict to lead to consensus, religious commitment to reinforce political
civility. In this way, diversity is not a point of weakness but a source of
strength.

I. A TIME FOR REAFFIRMATION

We believe, in the first place, that the nature of the Religious Liberty
clauses must be understood before the problems surrounding them can be resolved.
We therefore affirm both their cardinal assumptions and the reasons for their
crucial national importance.

With regard to the assumptions of the First Amendment Religious Liberty
clauses, we hold three to be chief:

1. The Inalienable Right

Nothing is more characteristic of humankind than the natural and inescapable
drive toward meaning and belonging, toward making sense of life and finding
community in the world. As fundamental and precious as life itself, this "will
to meaning" finds expression in ultimate beliefs, whether theistic or
non-theistic, transcendent or naturalistic, and these beliefs are most our own
when a matter of conviction rather than coercion. They are most our own when, in
the words of George Mason, the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of
Rights, they are "directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or
violence."

As James Madison expressed it in his Memorial and Remonstrance, "The
Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of
every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate.
This right is in its nature an unalienable right."

Two hundred years later, despite dramatic changes in life and a marked
increase of naturalistic philosophies in some parts of the world and in certain
sectors of our society, this right to religious liberty based upon freedom of
conscience remains fundamental and inalienable. While particular beliefs may be
true or false, better or worse, the right to reach, hold, exercise them freely,
or change them, is basic and non-negotiable. Religious liberty finally
depends on neither the favors of the state and its officials nor the vagaries of
tyrants or majorities. Religious liberty in a democracy is a right that may not
be submitted to vote and depends on the outcome of no election. A society is
only as just and free as it is respectful of this right, especially toward the
beliefs of its smallest minorities and least popular communities.

The right to freedom of conscience is premised not upon science, nor upon
social utility, nor upon pride of species. Rather, it is premised upon the
inviolable dignity of the human person. It is the foundation of, and is
integrally related to, all other rights and freedoms secured by the
Constitution. This basic civil liberty is clearly acknowledged in the
Declaration of Independence and is ineradicable from the long tradition of
rights and liberties from which the Revolution sprang.

2. The Ever Present Danger

No threat to freedom of conscience and religious liberty has historically
been greater than the coercions of both Church and State. These two institutions
— the one religious, the other political — have through the centuries succumbed
to the temptation of coercion in their claims, over minds and souls. When these
institutions and their claims have been combined, it has too often resulted in
terrible violations of human liberty and dignity. They are so combined when the
sword and purse of the State are in the hands of the Church, or when the State
usurps the mantle of the Church so as to coerce the conscience and compel
belief. These and other such confusions of religion and state authority
represent the misordering of religion and government which it is the purpose of
the Religious Liberty provisions to prevent.

Authorities and orthodoxies have changed, kingdoms and empires have come and
gone, yet as John Milton once warned, "new Presbyter is but old priest writ
large." Similarly, the modern persecutor of religion is but ancient tyrant with
more refined instruments of control. Moreover, many of the greatest crimes
against conscience of this century have been committed, not by religious
authorities, but by ideologues virulently opposed to traditional religion.

Yet whether ancient or modern, issuing from religion or ideology, the result
is the same: religious and ideological orthodoxies, when politically
established, lead only too naturally toward what Roger Williams called a
"spiritual rape" that coerces the conscience and produces "rivers of civil
blood" that stain the record of human history.

Less dramatic but also lethal to freedom and the chief menace to religious
liberty today is the expanding power of government control over personal
behavior and the institutions of society, when the government acts not so much
in deliberate hostility to, but in reckless disregard of, communal belief and
personal conscience.

Thanks principally to the wisdom of the First Amendment, the American
experience is different. But even in America where state-established orthodoxies
are unlawful and the state is constitutionally limited, religious liberty can
never be taken for granted. It is a rare achievement that requires constant
protection.

3. The Most Nearly Perfect Solution

Knowing well that "nothing human can be perfect" (James Madison) and that the
Constitution was not "a faultless work" (Gouverneur Morris), the Framers
nevertheless saw the First Amendment as a "true remedy" and the most nearly
perfect solution yet devised for properly ordering the relationship of religion
and the state in a free society. There have been occasions when the protections
of the First Amendment have been overridden or imperfectly applied. Nonetheless,
the First Amendment is a momentous decision for religious liberty, the most
important political decision for religious liberty and public justice in the
history of humankind. Limitation upon religious liberty is allowable only where
the State has borne a heavy burden of proof that the limitation is justified —
not by any ordinary public interest, but by a supreme public necessity — and
that no less restrictive alternative to limitation exists.

The Religious Liberty clauses are a brilliant construct in which both No
establishment and Free exercise serve the ends of religious liberty and freedom
of conscience. No longer can sword, purse and sacred mantle be equated. Now, the
government is barred from using religion's mantle to become a confessional
State, and from allowing religion to use the government's sword and purse to
become a coercing Church. In this new order, the freedom of the government from
religious control and the freedom of religion from government control are a
double guarantee of the protection of rights. No faith is preferred or
prohibited, for where there is no state-definable orthodoxy, there can be no
state-punishable heresy.

With regard to the reasons why the First Amendment Religious Liberty clauses
are important for the nation today, we hold five to be preeminent:

The First Amendment Religious Liberty provisions have both a logical and
historical priority in the Bill of Rights. They have logical priority because
the security of all rights rests upon the recognition that they are neither
given by the state, nor can they be taken away by the state. Such rights are
inherent in the inviolability of the human person. History demonstrates that
unless these rights are protected our society's slow, painful progress toward
freedom would not have been possible.

The First Amendment Religious Liberty provisions lie close to the heart of
the distinctiveness of the American experiment. The uniqueness of the American
way of disestablishment and its consequences have often been more obvious to
foreign observers such as Alexis de Tocqueville and Lord James Bryce, who wrote
that "Of all the differences between the Old world and the New, this is perhaps
the most salient." In particular, the Religious Liberty clauses are vital to
harnessing otherwise centrifugal forces such as personal liberty and social
diversity, thus sustaining republican vitality while making possible a necessary
measure of national concord.

The First Amendment Religious Liberty provisions are the democratic world's
most salient alternative to the totalitarian repression of human rights and
provide a corrective to unbridled nationalism and religious warfare around the
world.

The First Amendment Religious Liberty provisions provide the United States'
most distinctive answer to one of the world's most pressing questions in the
late-twentieth century. They address the problem: How do we live with each
other's deepest differences? How do religious convictions and political freedom
complement rather than threaten each other on a small planet in a pluralistic
age? In a world in which bigotry, fanaticism, terrorism and the state control of
religion are all too common responses to these questions, sustaining the justice
and liberty of the American arrangement is an urgent moral task.

The First Amendment Religious Liberty provisions give American society a
unique position in relation to both the First and Third worlds. Highly
modernized like the rest of the First World, yet not so secularized, this
society — largely because of religious freedom — remains, like most of the Third
World, deeply religious. This fact, which is critical for possibilities of
better human understanding, has not been sufficiently appreciated in American
self-understanding, or drawn upon in American diplomacy and communication
throughout the world.

In sum, as much if not more than any other single provision in the entire
Constitution, the Religious Liberty provisions hold the key to American
distinctiveness and American destiny. Far from being settled by the
interpretations of judges and historians, the last word on the First Amendment
likely rests in a chapter yet to be written, documenting the unfolding drama of
America. If religious liberty is neglected, all civil liberties will
suffer. If it is guarded and sustained, the American experiment will be the
more secure.

II. A TIME FOR REAPPRAISAL

Much of the current controversy about religion and politics neither reflects
the highest wisdom of the First Amendment nor serves the best interests of the
disputants or the nation. We therefore call for a critical reappraisal of the
course and consequences of such controversy. Four widespread errors have
exacerbated the controversy needlessly.

1. The Issue Is Not Only What We Debate, but How

The debate about religion in public life is too often misconstrued as a clash
of ideologies alone, pitting "secularists" against the "sectarians" or vice
versa. Though competing and even contrary worldviews are involved, the
controversy is not solely ideological. It also flows from a breakdown in
understanding of how personal and communal beliefs should be related to public
life.

The American republic depends upon the answers to two questions. By what
ultimate truths ought we to live? And how should these be related to public
life? The first question is personal, but has a public dimension because of the
connection between beliefs and public virtue. The American answer to the first
question is that the government is excluded from giving an answer. The second
question, however, is thoroughly public in character, and a public answer is
appropriate and necessary to the well-being of this society.

This second question was central to the idea of the First Amendment. The
Religious Liberty provisions are not "articles of faith" concerned with the
substance of particular doctrines or of policy issues. They are "articles of
peace" concerned with the constitutional constraints and the shared prior
understanding within which the American people can engage their differences in a
civil manner and thus provide for both religious liberty and stable public
government.

Conflicts over the relationship between deeply held beliefs and public policy
will remain a continuing feature of democratic life. They do not discredit the
First Amendment, but confirm its wisdom and point to the need to distinguish the
Religious Liberty clauses from the particular controversies they address. The
clauses can never be divorced from the controversies they address, but should
always be held distinct. In the public discussion, an open commitment to the
constraints and standards of the clauses should precede and accompany debate
over the controversies.

2. The Issue Is Not Sectarian, but National

The role of religion in American public life is too often devalued or
dismissed in public debate, as though the American people's historically vital
religious traditions were at best a purely private matter and at worst
essentially sectarian and divisive.

Such a position betrays a failure of civil respect for the convictions of
others. It also underestimates the degree to which the Framers relied on the
American people's religious convictions to be what Tocqueville described as "the
first of their political institutions." In America, this crucial public role has
been played by diverse beliefs, not so much despite disestablishment as because
of disestablishment.

The Founders knew well that the republic they established represented an
audacious gamble against long historical odds. This form of government depends
upon ultimate beliefs, for otherwise we have no right to the rights by which it
thrives, yet rejects any official formulation of them. The republic will
therefore always remain an "undecided experiment" that stands or falls by the
dynamism of its non-established faiths.

3. The Issue Is Larger Than the Disputants

Recent controversies over religion and public life have too often become a
form of warfare in which individuals, motives and reputations have been
impugned. The intensity of the debate is commensurate with the importance of the
issues debated, but to those engaged in this warfare we present those arguments
for reappraisal and restraint.

The lesser argument is one of expediency and is based on the ironic fact that
each side has become the best argument for the other. One side's excesses have
become the other side's arguments; one side's the other side's recruiters. The
danger is that, as the ideological warfare becomes self-perpetuating, more
serious issues and broader national interests will be forgotten and the
bitterness deepened.

The more important argument is one of principle and is based on the fact that
the several sides have pursued their objectives in ways which contradict their
own best ideals. Too often, for example; religious believers have been
uncharitable, liberals have been illiberal, conservatives have been insensitive
to tradition, champions of tolerance have been intolerant, defenders of free
speech have been censorious, and citizens of a republic based on democratic
accommodation have succumbed to a habit of relentless confrontation.

4. The Issue Is Understandably Threatening

The First Amendment's meaning is too often debated in ways that ignore the
genuine grievances or justifiable fears of opposing points of view. This happens
when the logic of opposing arguments favors either an unwarranted intrusion of
religion into public life or an unwarranted exclusion of religion from it.
History plainly shows that with religious control over government, political
freedom dies; with political control over religion, religious freedom dies.

The First Amendment has contributed to avoiding both these perils, but this
happy experience is no cause for complacency. Though the United States has
escaped the worst excesses experienced elsewhere in the world, the republic has
shown two distinct tendencies of its own, one in the past and one today.

In earlier times, though lasting well into the twentieth century, there was a
de facto semi-establishment of one religion in the United States: a generalized
Protestantism given dominant status in national institutions, especially in the
public schools. This development was largely approved by Protestants, but widely
opposed by non-Protestants, including Catholics and Jews.

In more recent times, and partly in reaction, constitutional jurisprudence
has tended, in the view of many, to move toward the de facto semi-establishment
of a wholly secular understanding of the origin, nature and destiny of humankind
and of the American nation. During this period, the exclusion of teaching about
the role of religion in society, based partly upon a misunderstanding of First
Amendment decisions, has ironically resulted in giving a dominant status to such
wholly secular understandings in many national institutions. Many secularists
appear as unconcerned over the consequences of this development as were
Protestants unconcerned about their de facto establishment earlier.

Such de facto establishments, though seldom extreme, usually benign and often
unwitting, are the source of grievances and fears among the several parties in
current controversies. Together with the encroachments of the expanding modern
state, such de facto establishments, as much as any official establishment, are
likely to remain a threat to freedom and justice for all.

Justifiable fears are raised by those who advocate theocracy or the coercive
power of law to establish a "Christian America." While this advocacy is and
should be legally protected, such proposals contradict freedom of conscience and
the genius of the Religious Liberty provisions.

At the same time there are others who raise justifiable fears of an
unwarranted exclusion of religion from public life. The assertion of moral
judgments as though they were morally neutral, and interpretations of the "wall
of separation" that would exclude religious expression and argument from public
life, also contradict freedom of conscience and the genius of the provisions.

Civility obliges citizens in a pluralistic society to take great care in
using words and casting issues. The communications media have a primary role,
and thus a special responsibility, in shaping public opinion and debate. Words
such as public, secular and religious should be free from discriminatory bias.
"Secular purpose," for example, should not mean "non-religious purpose" but
"general public purpose." Otherwise, the impression is gained that "public is
equivalent to secular; religion is equivalent to private." Such equations are
neither accurate nor just. Similarly, it is false to equate "public" and
"governmental." In a society that sets store by the necessary limits on
government, there are many spheres of life that are public but non-governmental.

Two important conclusions follow from a reappraisal of the present
controversies over religion in public life. First, the process of adjustment and
readjustment to the constraints and standards of the Religious Liberty
provisions is an ongoing requirement of American democracy. The Constitution is
not a self-interpreting, self-executing document, and the prescriptions of the
Religious Liberty provisions cannot by themselves resolve the myriad confusions
and ambiguities surrounding the right ordering of the relationship between
religion and government in a free society. The Framers clearly understood that
the Religious Liberty provisions provide the legal construct for what must be an
ongoing process of adjustment and mutual give-and-take in a democracy.

We are keenly aware that, especially over state-supported education, we as a
people must continue to wrestle with the complex connections between religion
and the transmission of moral values in a pluralistic society. Thus, we cannot
have, and should not seek, a definitive, once for all solution to the questions
that will continue to surround the Religious Liberty provisions.

Second, the need for such a readjustment today can best be addressed by
remembering that the two clauses are essentially one provision for preserving
religious liberty. Both parts, No establishment and Free exercise, are to be
comprehensively understood as being in the service of religious liberty as a
positive good. At the heart of the Establishment clause is the prohibition of
state sponsorship of religion and at the heart of Free Exercise clause is the
prohibition of state interference with religious liberty.

No sponsorship means that the state must leave to the free citizenry the
public expression of ultimate beliefs, religious or otherwise, providing only
that no expression is excluded from, and none governmentally favored, in the
continuing democratic discourse.

No interference means the assurance of voluntary religious expression free
from governmental intervention. This includes placing religious expression on an
equal footing with all other forms of expression in genuinely public forums.

No sponsorship and no interference together mean fair opportunity. That is to
say, all faiths are free to enter vigorously into public life and to exercise
such influence as their followers and ideas engender. Such democratic exercise
of influence is in the best tradition of American voluntarism and is not an
unwarranted "imposition" or "establishment."

III. A TIME FOR RECONSTITUTION

We believe, finally, that the time is ripe for a genuine expansion of
democratic liberty, and that this goal may be attained through a new engagement
of citizens in a debate that is reordered in accord with constitutional first
principles and considerations of the common good. This amounts to no less than
the reconstitution of a free republican people in our day. Careful consideration
of three precepts would advance this possibility:

1. The Criteria Must Be Multiple

Reconstitution requires the recognition that the great dangers in
interpreting the Constitution today are either to release interpretation from
any demanding criteria or to narrow the criteria excessively. The first relaxes
the necessary restraining force of the Constitution, while the second overlooks
the insights that have arisen from the Constitution in two centuries of national
experience.

Religious liberty is the only freedom in the First Amendment to be given two
provisions. Together the clauses form a strong bulwark against suppression of
religious liberty, yet they emerge from a series of dynamic tensions which
cannot ultimately be relaxed. The Religious Liberty provisions grow out of an
understanding not only of rights and a due recognition of faiths but of realism
and a due recognition of factions. They themselves reflect both faith and
skepticism. They raise questions of equality and liberty, majority rule and
minority rights, individual convictions and communal tradition.

The Religious Liberty provisions must be understood both in terms of the
Framers' intentions and history's sometimes surprising results. Interpreting and
applying them today requires not only historical research but moral and
political reflection.

The intention of the Framers is therefore a necessary but insufficient
criterion for interpreting and applying the Constitution. But applied by itself,
without any consideration of immutable principles of justice, the intention can
easily be wielded as a weapon for governmental or sectarian causes, some quoting
Jefferson and brandishing No establishment and others citing Madison and
brandishing Free exercise. Rather, we must take the purpose and text of the
Constitution seriously, sustain the principles behind the words and add an
appreciation of the many-sided genius of the First Amendment and its complex
development over time.

2. The Consensus Must Be Dynamic

Reconstitution requires a shared understanding of the relationship between
the Constitution and the society it is to serve. The Framers understood that the
Constitution is more than parchment and ink. The principles embodied in the
document must be affirmed in practice by a free people since these principles
reflect everything that constitutes the essential forms and substance of their
society — the institutions, customs and ideals as well as the laws. Civic
vitality and the effectiveness of law can be undermined when they overlook this
broader cultural context of the Constitution.

Notable, in this connection is the striking absence today of any national
consensus about religious liberty as a positive good. Yet religious liberty is
indisputably what the Framers intended and what the First Amendment has
preserved. Far from being a matter of exemption or even toleration, religious
liberty is an inalienable right. Far from being a sub-category of free speech or
a constitutional redundancy, religious liberty is distinct and foundational.
Far from being simply an individual right, religious liberty is a positive
social good. Far from denigrating religion as a social or political "problem,"
the separation of Church and State is both the saving of religion from the
temptation of political power and an achievement inspired in large part by
religion itself. Far from weakening religion, disestablishment has, as an
historical fact, enabled it to flourish.

In light of the First Amendment, the government should stand in relation to
the churches, synagogues and other communities of faith as the guarantor of
freedom. In light of the First Amendment, the churches, synagogues and other
communities of faith stand in relation to the government as generators of faith,
and therefore contribute to the spiritual and moral foundations of democracy.
Thus, the government acts as a safeguard, but not the source, of freedom for
faiths, whereas the churches and synagogues act as a source, but not the
safeguard, of faiths for freedom.

The Religious Liberty provisions work for each other and for the federal idea
as a whole. Neither established nor excluded, neither preferred nor proscribed,
each faith (whether transcendent or naturalistic) is brought into a relationship
with the government so that each is separated from the state in terms of its
institutions, but democratically related to the state in terms of individuals
and its ideas.

The result is neither a naked public square where all religion is excluded,
nor a sacred public square with any religion established or semi-established.
The result, rather, is a civil public square in which citizens of all religious
faiths, or none, engage one another in the continuing democratic discourse.

3. The Compact Must Be Mutual

Reconstitution of a free republican people requires the recognition that
religious liberty is a universal right joined to a universal duty to respect
that right.

In the turns and twists of history, victims of religious discrimination have
often later become perpetrators. In the famous image of Roger Williams, those at
the helm of the Ship of State forget they were once under the hatches. They
have, he said, "One weight for themselves when they are under the hatches, and
another for others when they come to the helm." They show themselves, said James
Madison, "as ready to set up an establishment which is to take them in as they
were to pull down that which shut them out." Thus, benignly or otherwise,
Protestants have treated Catholics as they were once treated, and secularists
have done likewise with both.

Such inconsistencies are the natural seedbed for the growth of a de facto
establishment. Against such inconsistencies we affirm that a right for one is a
right for another and a responsibility for all. A right for a Protestant is a
right for an Orthodox is a right for a Catholic is a right for a Jew is a right
for a Humanist is a right for a Mormon is a right for a Muslim is a right for a
Buddhist — and for the followers of any other faith within the wide bounds of
the republic.

That rights are universal and responsibilities mutual is both the premise
and the promise of democratic pluralism. The First Amendment, in this sense,
is the epitome of public justice and serves as the golden rule for civic life.
Rights are best guarded and responsibilities best exercised when each person and
group guards for all others those rights they wish guarded for themselves.
Whereas the wearer of the English crown is officially the Defender of the Faith,
all who uphold the American Constitution are defenders of the rights of all
faiths.

From this axiom, that rights are universal and responsibilities mutual,
derives guidelines for conducting public debates involving religion in a manner
that is democratic and civil. These guidelines are not, and must not be,
mandated by law. But they are, we believe, necessary to reconstitute and
revitalize the American understanding of the role of religion in a free society.

First, those who claim the right to dissent should assume the
responsibility to debate: Commitment to democratic pluralism assumes the
coexistence within one political community of groups whose ultimate faith
commitments may be incompatible, yet whose common commitment to social unity and
diversity does justice to both the requirements of individual conscience and the
wider community. A general consent to the obligations of citizenship is
therefore inherent in the American experiment, both as a founding principle ("We
the people") and as a matter of daily practice.

There must always be room for those who do not wish to participate in the
public ordering of our common life, who desire to pursue their own religious
witness separately as conscience dictates. But at the same time, for those who
do wish to participate, it should be understood that those claiming the right to
dissent should assume the responsibility to debate. As this responsibility is
exercised, the characteristic American formula of individual liberty
complemented by respect for the opinions of others permits differences to be
asserted, yet a broad, active community of understanding to be sustained.

Second, those who claim the right to criticize should assume the
responsibility to comprehend: One of the ironies of democratic life is that
freedom of conscience is jeopardized by false tolerance as well as by outright
intolerance. Genuine tolerance considers contrary views fairly and judges them
on merit. Debased tolerance so refrains from making any judgment that it refuses
to listen at all. Genuine tolerance honestly weighs honest differences and
promotes both impartiality and pluralism. Debased tolerance results in
indifference to the differences that vitalize a pluralistic democracy.

Central to the difference between genuine and debased tolerance is the
recognition that peace and truth must be held in tension. Pluralism must not be
confused with, and is in fact endangered by, philosophical and ethical
indifference. Commitment to strong, clear philosophical and ethical ideas need
not imply either intolerance or opposition to democratic pluralism. On the
contrary, democratic pluralism requires an agreement to be locked in public
argument over disagreements of consequence within the bonds of civility.

The right to argue for any public policy is a fundamental right for every
citizen; respecting that right is a fundamental responsibility for all other
citizens. When any view is expressed, all must uphold as constitutionally
protected its advocate's right to express it. But others are free to challenge
that view as politically pernicious, philosophically false, ethically evil,
theologically idolatrous, or simply absurd, as the case may be seen to be.

Unless this tension between peace and truth is respected, civility cannot be
sustained. In that event, tolerance degenerates into either apathetic relativism
or a dogmatism as uncritical of itself as it is uncomprehending of others. The
result is a general corruption of principled public debate.

Third, those who claim the right to influence should accept the
responsibility not to inflame: Too often in recent disputes over religion
and public affairs, some have insisted that any evidence of religious influence
on public policy represents an establishment of religion and is therefore
precluded as an improper "imposition." Such exclusion of religion from public
life is historically unwarranted, philosophically inconsistent and profoundly
undemocratic. The Framers' intention is indisputably ignored when public policy
debates can appeal to the theses of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, or Charles Darwin
and Sigmund Freud but not to the Western religious tradition in general and the
Hebrew and Christian Scriptures in particular. Many of the most dynamic social
movements in American history, including that of civil rights, were legitimately
inspired and shaped by religious motivation.

Freedom of conscience and the right to influence public policy on the basis
of religiously informed ideas are inseverably linked. In short, a key to
democratic renewal is the fullest possible participation in the most open
possible debate.

Religious liberty and democratic civility are also threatened, however, from
another quarter. Overreacting to an improper veto on religion in public life,
many have used religious language and images not for the legitimate influencing
of policies but to inflame politics. Politics is indeed an extension of ethics
and therefore engages religious principles; but some err by refusing to
recognize that there is a distinction, though not a separation, between religion
and politics. As a result, they bring to politics a misplaced absoluteness that
idolizes politics, "Satanizes" their enemies and politicizes their own faith.

Even the most morally informed policy positions involve prudential judgments
as well as pure principle. Therefore, to make an absolute equation of principles
and policies inflates politics and does violence to reason, civil life and faith
itself. Politics has recently been inflamed by a number of confusions: the
confusion of personal religious affiliation with qualification or
disqualification for public office; the confusion of claims to divine guidance
with claims to divine endorsement; and the confusion of government neutrality
among faiths with government indifference or hostility to religion.

Fourth, those who claim the right to participate should accept the
responsibility to persuade: Central to the American experience is the power
of political persuasion. Growing partly from principle and partly from the
pressures of democratic pluralism, commitment to persuasion is the corollary of
the belief that conscience is inviolable, coercion of conscience is evil, and
the public interest is best served by consent hard won from vigorous debate.
Those who believe themselves privy to the will of history brook no argument and
need never tarry for consent. But to those who subscribe to the idea of
government by the consent of the governed, compelled beliefs are a violation of
first principles. The natural logic of the Religious Liberty provisions is
to foster a political culture of persuasion which admits the challenge of
opinions from all sources.

Arguments for public policy should be more than private convictions shouted
out loud. For persuasion to be principled, private convictions should be
translated into publicly accessible claims. Such public claims should be made
publicly accessible for two reasons: first, because they must engage those who
do not share the same private convictions, and second, because they should be
directed toward the common good.

RENEWAL OF FIRST PRINCIPLES

We who live in the third century of the American republic can learn well from
the past as we look to the future. Our Founders were both idealists and
realists. Their confidence in human abilities was tempered by their skepticism
about human nature. Aware of what was new in their times, they also knew the
need for renewal in times after theirs. "No free government, or the blessings of
liberty," wrote George Mason in 1776, "can be preserved to any people, but by a
firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by
frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."

True to the ideals and realism of that vision, we who sign this Charter,
people of many and various beliefs, pledge ourselves to the enduring precepts of
the First Amendment as the cornerstone of the American experiment in liberty
under law.

We address ourselves to our fellow citizens, daring to hope that the
strongest desire of the greatest number is for the common good. We are firmly
persuaded that the principles asserted here require a fresh consideration, and
that the renewal of religious liberty is crucial to sustain a free people that
would remain free. We therefore commit ourselves to speak, write and act
according to this vision and these principles. We urge our fellow citizens to do
the same.

To agree on such guiding principles and to achieve such a compact will not be
easy. Whereas a law is a command directed to us, a compact is a promise that
must proceed freely from us. To achieve it demands a measure of the vision,
sacrifice and perseverance shown by our Founders. Their task was to defy the
past, seeing and securing religious liberty against the terrible precedents of
history. Ours is to challenge the future, sustaining vigilance and broadening
protections against every new menace, including that of our own complacency.
Knowing the unquenchable desire for freedom, they lit a beacon. It is for us who
know its blessings to keep it burning brightly.